To ease the tensions and to improve relations, the world is to do 20 push-ups. That is what Russia demands. Or else there will be misery<\/a> only the former communist state is capable of spreading. This misery will be a \u201crottingly\u201d slow process \u201cfilled with false hope.\u201d<\/p>\n Ukraine is the scapegoat this time, what with it trying to become buddies with the Western civilization. For that the punishment is 20 push-ups by the West as per the Russian demand. That\u2019ll teach us. And what Ukraine is in for will make former Soviet existence feel like peaches and cream. Poor Ukrainians\u2026<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a nuance to the Russian demand, and it\u2019s as nutty as the promised misery – the push-ups the West is to perform are to be done \u201cby the world and not the people.\u201d<\/p>\n What?<\/p>\n I will take a stab at clarifying this bushwa. You see, what they are saying is that it\u2019s the Western lands that are to drop and give the Russians 20. If you were a space alien watching this unfold from high up above the planet Earth, you\u2019d see continents heave up and go back down repeatedly in a foolish attempt to satisfy the Russian overlords. Yes, the swaths of Western dirt with the Western civilization built on top of it would move up and down. It would be a sight to behold. Russian fairy tales give birth to such nonsense. Many of these tales have someone \u201cgo don\u2019t know where and bring back don\u2019t know what.\u201d An impossible task. And that\u2019s what this Russian demand is – an impossible task. A fool\u2019s errand we\u2019d call it.<\/p>\n We\u2019d better do it too or misery. \u201cRottingly\u201d slow misery \u201cfilled with false hope.\u201d Presumably, that implies slow death. But simple phrases like \u201cslow death\u201d don\u2019t do it for Russians. They come from the land of such literary greats as Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Nabokov, Bulgakov, Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, the list goes on and on. The heritage is rich. The Russian babies suck in sophistication with mothers\u2019 milk. And they grow up with pomp in feast and menace. If blini then with caviar. If a threat then with a twist. A stick of misery with rot and false hope filling.<\/p>\n Why would Russians lay an impossible demand on the West? Because they think us fools. Being pragmatic capitalists, and, faced with a choice of fiery rockets or push-ups, we\u2019ll take the cheaper route. Cheaper is better. Us capitalists obsess about things being cheaper even when it\u2019s not better. And doing push-ups is cheaper than dealing with a swarm of fiery Russian rockets, much worse rockets that are sure to have demeaning messages written on them in Cyrillic. Our capitalist nature is to solve problems as quickly and as cheaply as we can (except when we can\u2019t and throw money at it instead). We are sure to get to work on raising and lowering our continents 20 times pronto. To Russians, this is all amusing. We shall entertain the Russian gloom by making our lands over-exert in ridiculous and impossible exercise.<\/p>\n I can hear the Russians laugh with a tinge of evil. \u201cThe fools,\u201d they are saying about us. \u201cThey think they are easing tensions and improving relations!\u201d<\/p>\n Now, let\u2019s figure out how we\u2019re going to make our continents do push-ups before the Russian fiery rockets reduce our Western civilization into the makings for the Ukrainian borscht.<\/p>\n Happy holidays\u2026<\/p>\n